


won't be going home tonight

by newrromantics



Category: The Hunger Games (Movies)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-07
Updated: 2015-03-07
Packaged: 2018-03-16 17:41:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3497099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newrromantics/pseuds/newrromantics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It dawns on her that she might love him - it's not a nice thought to have.</p>
            </blockquote>





	won't be going home tonight

**Author's Note:**

> italics are the reaping/training before the games/the games. none of that is in order. 
> 
> everything else is chronological. dubious consent due to ages. violence. general madness.

*

 

Clove is four years old when her brother wins the 63rd Annual Hunger Games. 

 

Even now she can remember the distant look in his eyes once he returned. Dale had always been her best friend, the person she looked up to but no longer did his smile hold the same familiar resemblance of hope and comfort but now it installed terror and fear in her. He wasn't the same.

 

*

 

_"Do you want to win or do you want to die?" Cato hisses at her in the Arena, watches as she trembles slightly under his grip; his fingers are wrapped around her wrist, digging in tightly to stop her from running off. To stop her from doing anything stupid like getting killed._

 

_Clove spits in his face. "I hate you." She tells him - it sounds like she means it, too._

 

_Cato's eyes flick up to the tree above them where Girl on Fire is asleep. It's their plan to kill her but here Clove is fucking it all up; his eyes flick towards where the others are sleep. Lover Boy is further away from the group, curled in on himself. Marvel's on his back, mouth slung open wide. Glimmer is lying on her side, her whole body slack. Clove notices his eyes on her and scoffs louder, this was her problem in the first place._

 

_"You're unbelievable," She tells him, it sounds like she's spitting out venom. Every word feeling like poison. He wants to tell her to go fuck herself. Instead he remembers the cameras, thinks about the people around them, reminds himself that this is a fucking game and drops her hands. Clove can do whatever the fuck she wants - only one of them can go home, anyway, and lately it's looking a lot like he should be the one to do so._

 

*

 

Cato likes Clove instantly, for many reasons.

One, she's tiny but lethal. Two, her brother is a hero. Three, she's kind of cute.

 

*

 

Clove is seven and a half when she runs into Cato. Her books fall to the floor and she frowns at him angrily, pushing him into a locker and demanding he picks her books up; she barely registers who he is.

 

Cato Ludgate, two years old than her, the toughest kid in the Academy.

 

For a second Clove blushes, feeling slightly embarrassed at her demands before she reminds herself she's just as strong, just as tough as he is. He bends down, scoops up all her books and hands them to her. Clove brushes past him, purposely knocking his shoulder and not bothering to say thank you. Even at seven and a half she's a handful who knows she deserves better and is willing to install fear in everyone she meets; she wants people to look at her and feel the same terror she feels when she looks at her older brother, Dale.

 

*

 

_"We won't both make it." Clove hums, fingers tracing patterns against Cato's skin. She had crawled into his carriage on the train at half past nine, sliding right in next to him. It was a short ride, two hours and fifty seven minutes, but they had gotten held up in One due to construction on the tracks. Marthory, their escort had made a big fuss about it; groaning and going on about how it shouldn't be holding them up. Two hours had turned into five._

 

_"Guess we've gotta enjoy the time we have now." Cato tells her, flipping them over so Clove is underneath him. He brushes his fingers through her hair, presses a pattern of kisses down the side of her face and neck, grins against her shoulder as he lightly bites it and she yelps; smacks him over the head and tells him to be careful._

 

_He wonders if they know. Marthory and the others. Or if it's just a secret they share. He decides he doesn't care._

 

*

 

"What do you want?" A nine year old Clove asks, her arms crossed against her chest when she sees Cato approaching her. He's become her biggest rival in the Academy.

 

"Wanna fight you." He tells her as he grabs a sword, raises his eyebrows. Clove rolls her eyes, scoffing,

 

"Think you can beat _me_?" She asks him. Everyone knows Clove is the strongest even at her young age. Her figure makes it easy for her to slip past you unnoticed and she's got a wicked talent for throwing knives. Cato grins at her, in a sly cocky smirk that she hates.

 

"Yeah." He slices a dummy in half with his sword and Clove narrowly misses her head when she sends two knives flying towards the targets; hits bulls-eye on both.

 

*

 

_"You're such a fucking fake!" Clove screeches, throwing a glass towards the wall, right above Cato's head. It misses him, shattering all around him. He smirks, mostly entertained by her antics. Marathory doesn't say a word, neither do Beatrice and Ky, their mentors._

 

_"Calm down, sweetheart." Cato mocks. The interviews had gone smoothly - up until Twelve declared his love for his female tribute partner. Clove had gone into a rage, the Capitol would eat that fucking bullshit up; she knew it was fake, too, because she watched Twelve in the arena closely, a volunteer from Twelve? That could prove to be deadly, fatal even. It was an angle Cato and her could of taken, even if deep down she knows she'd never ever take it, but she's still allowed to be mad. Cato winds her up even more by finding it amusing._

 

_"I should kill you now." She tells him viciously, cracking her knuckles._

 

_"I'd say save that for the Arena but," Cato pauses, eyeing her up like she's a meal and she doesn't think about how later tonight he'll be ripping this red tulle dress off of her in the darkness of either one of their rooms. "You'll be the first throat I slash."  
_

 

*

 

Cato kisses Clove for the first time on her tenth birthday, it's deep inside the woods and her party dress is stained with mud; her mother is going to be furious.

 

She punches him in the jaw and runs away.

 

*

 

The day after her tenth birthday Cato tries to find her in the Academy. When he does, he finds her practicing throwing knives.

 

"I'm sorry about yesterday - " He starts but before he can finish his sentence, Clove is rushing towards him and has her hands wrapped around his throat in a choke hold and pushes him down against the mat on the ground. She's tempted to spit in his face.

 

"Stay away from me." She tells him quietly instead, her voice vicious and leaving no room for disagreement. When she lets go his neck is bruised, slightly blue, and he's breath is jagged; he runs away as fast as he can and doesn't look back.

 

Clove may look small but she's fucking deadly.

 

*

 

_"You're going to win." Clove tells him, smiling tightly the morning of the reaping. Cato's set to volunteer - she's volunteering the year after; he smirks at her, tucks her hair behind her ear, it's still loose, not yet plaited, and kisses her cheek._

 

_"Of course." If either of them has any doubt they don't dare voice it._

 

*

 

Amber, Clove's kind of best friend-kind of annoying follower, talks about Cato non stop. Like _non stop_. He's all she ever talks about.

 

"We did it, you know." Amber tells her one night. Clove's barely paying attention, she's too focused on polishing the blade in front of her.

 

"Did what?" Clove asks, uninterested in whatever it is Amber has to say but asks anyway, to be polite.

 

Amber is silent for a moment which catches Clove's attention. Amber is the loudest, most talkative person Clove has ever meet. "Sex." She says after a second before a grin takes over her face and her voice goes all lovey-dovey when she lets out the softest of sighs. Clove wants to gag at the sight of it.

 

"With who?" Clove asks with minimal interest. Amber's even younger than she is, by a month, but _still_. It's kind of weird to think her best friend, who's just ten years old, has had _sex_ \- that's something old people did, and it turns out, Amber.

 

"Cato, duh." She says and Clove ignores the jealousy that curls in the pit of her gut; remembers his lips pressed against hers in the middle of the woods. Remembers how he's all Amber ever talks about.

 

"Cool." Clove replies dryly, going back to polishing her blade and not thinking about why she could possibly be jealous of Amber for having sex with Cato - it's kind of gross, really.

 

*

 

_"If I die - " Clove says, eyes wide with fear as she paces back and forth in the small compartment. Cato stands next to her; technically, they're supposed to be in different compartments but they both have elevators that'll shoot them out._

 

_Clove hasn't been nervous up until now, seconds away from entering the Arena. Cato grabs her shoulders, kisses her fiercely - knows it's the last time he'll ever kiss her and rests his forehead against hers. The fight they had last night all but forgotten._

 

_"You won't." He tells her sharply._

 

*

 

"You had sex with my best friend." Clove confronts him the day after Amber tells her. Hands on her hips. He's in the middle of training for a boxing fight in the Academy but Clove could care less.

 

"Who's she?" He asks with a smirk. Clove purses her lips, rolling her eyes and pushing past him.

 

"You're disgusting!" She calls over his shoulder but smiles when she can feel his eyes on her as she walks away.

 

*

 

Cato pines her up against a wall the next day at training. Their class watches. Clove twists underneath him, feels embarrassment at losing in front of her peers.

 

She corners him afterwards, her eyes steely.

 

"I'd watch out if I were you."

 

*

 

Clove turns eleven and slowly Cato and her get back on good terms; they team up during training and take each other down at every opportunity. It's fun, it's easy - because Clove knows everything about Cato, his height, his weight, his weaknesses, his strengths. She can feel him approaching her without having to see him, knows when he's about to throw a punch and has learned how to dodge him.

 

He laughs against the skin of her cheek when they hug after a particularly brutal match. Everyone around them cheers. Clove stiffens underneath his touch a little, realising this is the first time they've properly hugged. He tells her congratulations, it was a good fight and Clove grins: she's victorious.

 

*

 

Amber cries when Cato gets a girlfriend and Clove tries not to think about it too much because if she does she'll have to realise how her stomach clenches in disgust at the thought and how she keeps replaying that time he kissed her in the woods.

 

*

 

_Clove stands very still as she watches Cato take his shirt off. Beatrice wants to speak to her about a game plane, tactics, but she had told her to give her an hour. Cato winks at her as he unbuckles his pants. Clove wonders if it'll be different now that they know they have to kill each other - they hadn't done anything on the train but kiss, run their fingers down each others backs. It's not a romantic union they have, but it's sort of like a friendship, it's beneficial to both of them, and the thought of losing Cato sort of scares her. But losing scares her more._

 

_"You're so hot, you know?" Cato tells her as he strides forward, gripping her tiny waist with his massive hands. It looks sort of out of place but it's just about the most familiar thing she knows: it's been this way since she was just a kid, when she was eleven and he was thirteen; now she's fifteen and he's seventeen and one of them - or both of them - are going to die. She just hopes it's him._

 

_Clove hums in response as he leans down and kisses her._

 

*

 

Clove is staying behind late at the Academy; so is Cato. Mostly they're training in silence, the only sounds are slashing of swords.

 

"I broke up with her." He tells her. It's off topic, comes out of nowhere and startles her; startles her so much she slips and her knife falls to the ground. Scowling, she shoots daggers with her eyes this way and doesn't bother asking her name. Still, she doesn't know it. Not much point now that he's broken up with what's-her-name.

 

"Amber will be glad." Clove mumbles unhappily. Cato raises an eyebrow at her remark but doesn't say anything. Silence envelops the two of them again. Until Cato drops his weapon and walks towards her; something in the air is off, she doesn't know why she feels awkward all of a sudden, (maybe it's because his face is soft and he's looking at her like she's the world). Clove lets her on knife rest against the table and waits for Cato to say something. Instead he leans forward and press their lips together in a chaste kiss, it reminds her of a kiss more than a year ago, nearly two years ago, her twelfth birthday is two months away now. His hands press themselves softly against the skin on her shoulders and she makes a sound at the back of her throat as he opens up her mouth with his tongue. Clove doesn't really know how to do this, the only other boy she has kissed was Dev and it was a dare; it was a brief peck in the middle of a party where everyone had snickered and he'd gone bright red and she'd been dissatisfied. Boys like Dev would never please her but boys like Cato might.

 

*

 

_Thresh is towering above her, with a rock in his hand and she knows it's going to come down on her. Clove screams and tries to wriggle her way out of his grasp but it's no luck - she's going to die._

 

_"Cato!" She screams, on the top of her lungs. Apart from death, he's her only thought. "Cato! Cato! Cato!" She keeps screaming, eyes wide with fear as the rock hits her head for the first time. Everything goes hazy after that. She's faintly aware that she's mumbling his name. She thinks about Dale - Dale who she barely knows anymore but still admires, thinks about how he won the games and she's lost. Her mother - her mother who's never approved of her partaking in training and the Academy and would much rather watch her daughter put on frilly dresses and have tea with the other girls because what's the point in Clove trying to win when her son is already a Victor and has brought huge pride to the family? Clove thinks about how she's now only going to bring shame, she doubts her mother will weep for her death. Her father - her father who's cold and cruel and drinks too much, who slapped her when she came home later one night when she was fourteen, who's always scared her. Of her friends at school - Amber, always talking but not so much anymore. Kimber and Karenia and Octolavia - these girls she sits with but doesn't know at all. Clove thinks about her regrets: thinks that everything she's ever done is a regret. Thinks about Dev for a moment and then she goes back to thinking about Cato; with his strong hands underneath her skirt and pinning her against wars during training and spitting blood at him and screaming at him for showing her up. Clove thinks about how he isn't here to save her and she's going to die alone._

 

_Then she feels the brush of someones skin against her hands, knows in a instant it's Cato. He's sobbing next to her._

 

_"Don't leave me." He tells her - or something. Clove's going quicker and quicker. She'd like to stay. But she doesn't.  
_

 

*

 

"You're hot." He tells her a week later, she's pinned up against the wall in the Academy. All week she's been thinking about their kiss. This time it turns more dangerous - his hand slips up underneath her shirt, feeling her stomach and her budding breasts that are nothing like the other girls (see: Amber's). Clove thinks this has to be wrong, he's much too old for her and he's basically a brother. Instead she smirks against his lips and shivers under his touch, gasping when his hands take off her shirt and slip into her shorts.

 

Clove wonders what it would be like to be fucked by him. By the end of the night she knows.

 

*

 

Cato turns fourteen five months after she turns twelve. He throws a big party. It's full of the older kids Clove's never interacted with before. The only times she's seen them is when she has them pinned against the floor, one of her knives underneath their throat and they're whimpering for mercy underneath her. They're fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen - all so older and developed and the girls all look like, well, _girls_. The type Clove sees in her mothers magazines posing in fancy lace underwear (stuff her mother had tried to buy her but she had refused but now she's considering).

 

She goes to grab a drink from the kitchen. Cato's house is a familiar map to her but freezes when she sees Cato and a girl older than him, sixteen maybe? pressed against the sink. Her hands are wrapped around his neck and his hands are cupping her thighs as they heatedly make out. Clove feels so much smaller than she's ever felt before as she watches them; nothing about Clove and Cato are normal, official, they're not a couple but her skin burns in jealousy as she watches them. Feels inadequate as Cato palms the girls boobs that actually fill out a bra. Clove looks down at her own chest, small, flat, with a tiny curve of a bump; she doesn't even need a bra, doesn't bother wearing one; she feels nothing less than stupid in that moment. As if Cato would want her when he could get any girl he wants.

 

Clove leaves.

 

*

 

_He feels Clove shift next to him, whining a little in her sleep._

 

_Cato thinks about how she slept differently back home. How the Games have changed everything; they're not like he thought they'd be. It's not as easy to kill as he thought it'd be, there's not much moral consequence because he doesn't know these people but he also knows none of their weakness, it makes it more of a challenge. He pets Clove's hair, thinks about any day now she could die. He hopes it's her that dies; he hopes it's soon so he doesn't have to kill her._

 

*

 

"Where did you go last night?" Cato asks the next morning as they're training. He watches as Clove works out, admiring her figure as she runs, jumps, squats. Clove ignores his questions, runs faster, jumps higher, squats further.

 

"Clove." He says, wondering what's wrong with her; she brushes him off again. "Clove." He says again, his tone sharper this time. Visibly she flinches for a second before recollecting her cool and turning around to face him, she takes out her earbuds and raises an eyebrow at him.

 

"What?" She asks, annoyed at his interference. At him, in general. At herself, for not being like the other girls.

 

He grins, "Wanna get outta here and fuck?" He's already imaging Clove squirming underneath him, breathless; it sounds kind of murderous and he imagines what it would be like to kill her - he imagines what it's like to kill everyone but finds his palms sweating and his pants growing tighter, it's kind of hot. The line doesn't woo her like he had expected; or, like he had hoped she'd agree too. Instead Clove scoffs.

 

"Go find one of your other girls." She spits as she puts her earbuds back in and continues to work out, leaving Cato speechless. He's not so quick on the uptake but it soon clicks into place and he grimaces at what she must of seen last night.

 

"It's not like we're dating or anything." He calls out. Clove pauses, pulls one earbud out and grins at him lazily.

 

"I know."

 

*

 

He hooks his fingers around her underwear. Presses a kiss to her thigh.

 

"Missed you today." He says, mumbling. Clove smirks at the thought of him missing her; bets he doesn't miss other girls.

 

"Fuck," Clove breathes and it sounds strange coming out of her mouth. It feels strange, all of this does. Cato hears his front door unlock and his eyes go wide, fingers falling from her legs and he quickly redresses himself, a task easily done as neither of them had bothered to fully undress. His parents were supposed to be doing business in the Capitol for the entire week. He rushes downstairs, pushing Clove into his closet.

 

"Why do I - " She's going to ask why she has to hide, why she can't meet his parents but he's already down the stairs by the time it takes her to get the words out. Rolling her eyes, she pushes herself further into the closet, sliding against the wall until she's sitting down. Clove can hear him talking to his parents downstairs, laughing and asking why they're home early. Clove stops listening.

 

*

 

Cato and her have sex in the school bathrooms. And in a classroom. And in the boys changing rooms. And in the school gym - it resembles the training area in the Academy a little.

 

It's the first time either of them have shown up to school in a while.

 

*

 

Dale comes home.

 

Clove hasn't seen him since she was nine years old and still wore headbands in her hair; she grins lazily up at him when he enters into the house and thinks about how much has changed since he moved to live in the Capitol. He sits her on his knee and tells her stories of ladies with pretty hair and dresses, the mansions he visited, the men he played sport with on the weekend. Clove is enthralled by her stories, never wanting to leave her brothers side. She doesn't care much for dresses and hair right now but she imagines in a few years time when she's a Victor, she'll care. Once her life doesn't revolve around splitting people's heads in two and drawing as much blood as possible or sneaking around with Cato; maybe then it'll be something she's interested in. Dale manages to make it sound exciting, anyway.

 

"Got a girlfriend or a boyfriend, Clo?" He asks as he makes dinner, grinning at her. Clove blushes, her mind goes straight to Cato _but he's not her boyfriend_.

 

"There's this one girl I might like." She says instead. It's the truth. Margo Lyons was impossibly beautiful and unattainable - she excelled in all the arts and academics but had never touched a weapon before in her life. Clove's promised to teach her. Dale says it sounds promising and to keep him updated.

 

*

 

_Cato kneels down next to Clove's lifeless body and begs her to stay with him; both of them can win this now._

 

_(but some part of him is sort of glad she's gone, he doesn't know how much he trusts the Capitol now that he's playing by it's rules; maybe they would of made him kill her)._

 

*

 

Cato makes her come twice on her thirteenth birthday while everyone is downstairs. Her screams are muffled by her pillow.

 

*

 

The thing is this: It's just sex between Cato and Clove.

 

*

 

_Clove stands amongst the other girls her age and tucks her hands into the pockets of her dress. Amber stands next to her, eyes searching for Kilian, the supposed female tribute for this year._

 

_"I heard she's a nervous trainwreck," Amber gossips. Clove snorts. She hates those types; the types that are supposed to volunteer but let whoever's called go instead. It's cruel - some of the kids called have never been trained before, sometimes District 2 doesn't win. Clove tells her to shut up as Marathory struts against the stage, taps the microphone and plays the video. Clove eats it all up. Reaping Day has always been her favourite; she meets Cato's eyes as the video plays and he winks at her - she hopes he makes it out alive._

 

_"Females first," Marathory calls. Amber's making a bet with one of the girls that Kilian will be a no show. Clove thinks it's so incredibly stupid - she'll just be slaughtered in her own district then. They kill disobedient students. "Clove Fuhmen." Marathory calls. Clove's blood runs cold, then she smirks as she walks up to the stage. Kilian doesn't come forward to volunteer. All Clove can think is that it's not her year, it's Cato's year; Cato! Her eyes don't gravitate towards him at all as she smirks on stage; this is what she's been preparing for anyway, she's ready as can be. It's not like what her and Cato has is romantic, even if deep down inside she thinks she could love him if the situation was different but then she doesn't think she'd be her if the situation was different._

 

_Cato volunteers. They shake hands. Pretend not to know each other. It's easier this way._

 

*

 

Clove punches Cato in the jaw; he hits her above the eye; she cuts his cheek; he claws at her face.

 

"Who the fuck is she, huh, Cato?" Clove yelps. It's just supposed to be them, they'd made it that way over three months ago.

 

"You're just a kid." Cato spits back at her, pushing her until she topples over. She feels so weak, so small. He reminds her she's just thirteen, that the other girls are more beautiful and much more mature. She doesn't say what a pervert it makes him for sleeping with someone so young; they all do it, the history books say that before Panem age matters but it doesn't anymore.

 

"Go fuck someone else instead then, Cato. I'm done." Clove says coldly. Cato shrugs his shoulders.

 

"Better fuck than you anyway." He says harshly as he leaves, spitting in her face. Clove thinks about murdering him in his sleep and then cries for the first time in three years curled up in bed.

 

*

 

_Clove's blood boils as she watches Glimmer and Cato get too friendly in the Games._

 

_"Fuck you," She whispers into Cato's ear as they track through the greenery; they're trying to find the Girl on Fire, she'd narrowly missed killing her in the bloodbath and they all wanted her dead. Lover Boy was trailing behind them, helping them find her. Cato laughs against her, eyes catching Glimmer and winking. It wasn't fair for the poor girl - it wasn't fair for Clove, it never has been fair for her._

 

*

 

Clove whimpers as he hugs her, apologising.

She says sorry, too.

 

*

 

_At night she tries not to think about how in a matter of days they'll have to kill each other or watch the other one be killed. It dawns on her that she might love him - it's not a nice thought._

 


End file.
